A Defense of Agnosticism

The following post is the result of a discussion with Mike Bratton. Unfortunately, I didn’t adhere to his request for no “No long-form essays”. However, since this is an attempt to demonstrate that my worldview isn't a "specious" one, as he contends, I hope he'll cut me some slack.

A Defense of Agnosticism

Central Questions and Worldviews

Central to the debate about the existence of God is the question “Does God exist?” It seems to me that there are basically three responses to this question – “yes”, “no” and “maybe”. I’ll take those three responses to define three worldviews – theistic, atheistic and agnostic, respectively.

A related but different question is “Do you believe in God?” Since there seem to be only two answers to this question – “yes” and “no” – this question seems to fail to distinguish between the three worldviews I’ve defined above. However, what it really does is supplement the first questions. I’ll take the two answers to this question to define two additional worldviews – the “believer” and the “non-believer”.

It seems, then, that there are four consistent views – theistic believers, agnostic believers, agnostic non-believers and atheistic non-believers.

I distinguish between these two questions and outline these views to make an important distinction - when talking about the existence of God, one must distinguish between what one believes and what one knows to be true.

God

I should clarify how I’m using the word “God”. I use this word in its most generic sense. For me, God is a supernatural being responsible for the creation of the universe. In using “supernatural” I’m being a little redundant since any being capable of creating the universe would necessarily be, in some sense, beyond or outside of the universe and so “above” nature. However, God’s supernatural character is important to this defense so I emphasize it.

I know this bare-bones characterization of God will be objected to by some since many of the arguments for God’s existence (another important part of this argument) are predicated on God having certain characteristics. I will address this concern in more detail later in this post (so if you think I’m setting up a straw man argument, just bear with me and hopefully I’ll convince you that I’m not).

Ontology

I will start with the premise that it is either the case that God exists or he doesn’t. I need to clarify this since there are some who hold that God did exist at one time but no longer does and others who would argue that because of God’s supernatural character, the term “exist” doesn’t really apply to him or that he has the ability (assuming omnipotence) to both exist and not exist or to be in some other state altogether.

Agnosticism and Epistemology

The agnostic position I hold is one that accepts the possible existence of God but rejects that there is currently enough evidence or proof for his existence. Accepting the possible existence of God isn’t really much of a concession since, if you accept the possible existence of supernatural entities (as I do), you pretty much have to accept that just about any conceivable entity might potentially exist.

So the crux of the matter lies with the idea of evidence or proof of God’s existence. Again, the agnostic contends that such evidence or proof doesn’t currently exist. There are some agnostics who believe that such evidence/proofs can never be found since God, if he exists, is of a nature that goes beyond man’s ability to verify his existence.

Other agnostics (like me) don’t hold this view. In my opinion, if God exists, he has the ability to make himself know to humans in a way that would provide evidence or proof for his existence.

Evidence of God’s Existence

The simplest form of evidence for the existence of God would be a direct encounter with him in a controlled environment involving a large number of individuals. Although I understand that encounters with many people are said to have occurred in the past, as far as I know, none have occurred during a time in man’s development where that encounter could, in some sense, be recorded in an objective way and so reanalyzed in an objective way.

I understand that many people have what they consider to be evidence or proof for the existence of God via the events and experiences they have had in life. And for all I know, that’s exactly what they do have.

But I also know there are many folks who believe absolutely, based on their personal experiences, that there is no God. Expanding on this, I can find people who will attest to the belief that ghosts, aliens, Big Foot, The Loch Ness monster and a ton of other entities – all of which may in fact exist – do exist because of personal experiences they have had.

My point is that personal experiences are subjective and depend heavily on one’s personal interpretation of the events of one’s life. Although these experiences can be compelling or moving – and for all I know, might actually constitute real proof – they don’t constitute what I would consider objective evidence since, ultimately, there is no way for me to directly re-experience these personal events. Consequently, I have no way to knowing who’s “evidence” to accept.

Arguments for God’s Existence

Given the lack of objective evidence for God’s existence, it isn’t perhaps surprising that many people have put forth so called “proofs” or arguments for the existence of God over the centuries.

I’ll first say that as far as I can tell, existence proofs are unique to theologians (or apologists). Although many scientific theories have predicted the existence of entities (Neptune and the Higgs boson come to mind), those theoretical predictions are never viewed as proofs of existence. Ultimately, objective empirical evidence is required to verify the existence of these entities.

I’ll also say that though I don’t claim to be familiar with all arguments for God’s existence, all of the ones I have seen always seem to be predicated on assumptions which might reasonably be questioned or make assumptions about the nature of God which make them circular.

In the first case – arguments which make questionable assumptions – the problem ultimately stems from the supernatural nature of God. As I said near the beginning of this post, this is the only characteristic which I assume God has – and one I think most would agree he has (assuming he exists, of course). The problem with this assumption is that once you attribute supernatural qualities to God you can’t really defend the use of any principles or laws in your argument which are based on how things in our universe seem to behave.

Consequently, appeals to things like cause and effect, conservation of energy or entropy can’t be justified in a context where you are discussing a being that transcends or doesn’t necessarily have to obey any of these things.

I’m being purposely general (vague) here because I don’t want to address any particular argument for God’s existence but I’d be happy to elaborate or respond to any particular argument.

As for the second case – arguments that attribute certain characteristics to God – as I’ve said, these seem circular to me. If you are trying to convince someone – who doesn’t believe in God – of God’s existence, why should that person accept that God has certain characteristics – even for the sake of argument? These arguments – which typically invoke things like the idea of perfection, or rationality or ultimate benevolence – basically seem to have the form “If God exists and if God has this characteristic then the following argument strongly suggests that God must exists.” But the conclusion is just a restatement of the first assumption – that’s circular.

Belief

So where does that leave someone who can’t convince themselves that there is enough objective evidence and no solid argument for the existence of God? Well, knowing that you can’t really justify belief in something and believing it anyways are two different things.

There are agnostics who, because of this apparent lack of evidence, choose not to believe that God exists. This isn’t an assertion of non-existence. It’s more of a default setting. In the same way that I choose not to believe in the existence of ghosts or aliens or any number of other entities which might exist for lack of enough evidence, I choose not to believe that God exists. But I do this with the understanding that my view might change given the proper evidence and that he might exists regardless of my views about the matter.

There are also agnostics who are believers. Despite the lack of evidence, they still believe in God’s existence. They just acknowledge that they can’t really justify that belief.

Truth be told, outside of the topic of God, this later view is the one I hold on most things. Technically, I can’t prove with 100% confidence that I’m sitting at a computer typing. I might be dreaming or maybe I’m a brain in a vat being fed impulses (yes, the Matrix thing). But that doesn’t stop me from believing it anyways. Same with just about everything I take as true.

I welcome any comments on these views. I think I've made it clear that I'm not dead set on being an agnostic non-believer. In my opinion, there are few things greater in life (at least intellectually) than coming to the sudden realization that something you thought was true isn't. Accepting the existence of God would certainly count as big example of this.